Title Needed
by CloudSpires1295
Summary: Series of one shots set in the Underestimate 'verse following Pan through the events of Age of Ultron. Rated M to cover all possible bases. Pan x Thor. Feel free to suggest a title.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey all. So I wrote this thing for my DBZxMCU 'verse that's set during the events of Age of Ultron. As of right now, me posting this shot, the only fics that remain the canon for this verse, other than this one, are '** ** _Underestimate_** **' and '** ** _Finding A Codename_** **'. Battle of Worthiness, Beyond the Pain, and Beautiful Treasures, which has been taken down, are now non-canon. Not that it particularly matters since this is all a work of fiction, but the distinction is more for my benefit than the readers.**

 **I've got some stuff slated for The Dark World, Winter Soldier, and Civil War that have yet to be completed. Winter Soldier will probably just be a very brief cameo from Pan. She doesn't really need to play a role there. Instead of writing about the whole movie, which would take ages because the long shot I'm pulling bits and pieces from took a good few hours of rewinding and pausing to get the transcript for everyone else right, and then re-working some of it to fit Pan in, I'll pick and choose scenes and post them. I'm not patient enough to do the whole movie, tbh.**

 **I also have mixed emotions about including Pan in Civil War as far as the physical conflict goes. Whichever side she falls on would get a very unfair advantage, as she is a super saiyan, so I'm not sure I'll have her fight. I'm still not sure how to really compare her power level to the rest of the Avengers, even after all this time.**

 **Enough chit-chat, let's get into this mess. Enjoy the read.**

 **Disclaimer:** ** _Marvel Comics, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Dragon Ball Universe, and their included characters are not my property, I'm simply hijacking them for the sake of my own enjoyment._**

 **This is from the beginning of _Age of Ultron_ and is very short, I know, but I'm pulling the shots I'll post here from a longer piece I've written and don't want to post as a whole because I'm weird. This is also my first time writing Pan in quite some time, so bear with me.**

 **Another note, canon as far as the DBZ portion of the verse ignores both GT and Super. Basically, the threats just stopped rolling in for the Z senshi after Majin Buu.**

* * *

"Why don't the rest of you go home?" Pan teased wryly, speaking into her earpiece, "this is a milk run for me." She sent two tanks flying into the air with a pulse of her ki.

" _Arrogance isn't becoming of you, Princess_."

"Hush you, Thunder," Pan replied, "and it's not arrogance if it's the truth." She waved cheekily at the Sokovian soldiers who were headed in her direction, guns at the ready. She lazily dodged a few of the plasma blasts they sent in her direction and began taking them out.

" _It's easy to forget that you and your family are used to taking on monsters hell-bent on destroying the planet._ "

"You might not be aware of it, but the planet actually _was_ destroyed once." Pan flipped another one of the heavy gun tanks over with a ki pulse, "this bubble gum monster named Kid Buu did it. My grandpa defeated him and asked for him to be reincarnated as a good person. He's, his reincarnation is, four years older than me, his name's Uub."

" _Wait… reincarnation's a thing?_ " Tony asked, incredulous.

"Under special circumstances, yes."

" _…_ "

" _Tony's speechless, it's a goddamn miracle._ " Clint chortled.

* * *

 **Let me make one thing clear: At the risk of sounding conceited as hell, I'm not staging a comeback of any sort. This is all I'll be posting here for the foreseeable future. If that changes, you'll know because I'll start posting other stuff. I won't let anyone know beforehand because I don't want to make promises I can't keep.**


	2. Chapter 2

Pan watched with an air of boredom as the enhanced, a young man maybe a year or so younger than she was, zipped through the trees. To everyone else, he was a blur, but she was able to follow his movements with absolutely no trouble. She bit back a snort as he knocked Clint on his ass after catching two of his arrows before they reached their target and moved to intercept him.

" _You didn't see that coming_?" The silver haired boy teased, jogging at a slow enough pace for Clint to see and then zipping off… only to run smack into the arm Pan was holding out, effectively clotheslining himself.

" _What_?" Pan parroted cheekily when he looked up at her dazedly, " _you didn't see that coming_?"

Clint sat up and rolled his eyes, "serves him right." The enhanced frowned at her, "you can see me?"

" _See_ _you_?" Pan snorted with amusement, "I've been watching you zip through the trees for the past five minutes since you came out here, kid. I mean, you're fast but," she shrugged, "I'm just faster."

Clint went to stand, and Pan's gaze moved from the silver haired enhanced to him… just in time to watch a plasma blast tear through his side. The enhanced took that opportunity to dart away and Pan raised her arm, charging a white ki blast, and spoke into the comms, " _hey guys, if any of you are near this bunker I'm about to blow to hell… you better clear out in the next few seconds._ "

" _Jeeze, Sweetness, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?_ " Tony responded jovially.

" _You think my mouth is bad, you should hear my mother when she gets good and properly angry._ " Pan replied, aiming the blast, " _Clint's down, I'll cover evac._ " Before she could release the blast, Hulk barreled through the snowy forest and demolished the bunker, "… _thanks, Hulk._ "

" _Let Nat take him,_ " Cap responded, " _There are couple more bunkers out here that need smashing._ "

" _I think our giant enthusiastic green friend has that in hand, Cap,_ " Pan dropped down next to Clint in the snow and applied pressure to the wound, " _it's no trouble really, it won't take me long._ _I want to see if I can catch that enhanced again. Has anyone else encountered him yet?_ "

" _Wait, you_ caught _him?_ " Cap's voice was incredulous, " _I couldn't even_ see _him._ "

" _One of the many perks of being a quarter alien,_ " Pan hummed, looking up when Nat approached, moving aside so she could take over, " _Nat's got Clint, I'm going to look for silver hair dude._ "


	3. Chapter 3

Pan meandered over to the railing where her fiancé was leaning, casually leaning her head against his firm upper left arm. After a moment, the demi-god leaned his head over to rest against the top of hers.

"I'm about to go shower," she murmured, "care to join me?"

"Sounds like a wonderful plan, my lady," Thor responded, "Stark is planning a celebration Saturday evening and asked us to attend."

"He mentioned that to me on the flight home," Pan pursed her lips in thought, "I'm trying to remember if I've got anything to wear. Do you have anything to wear?"

"I've my armor, Pan."

"No," Pan shook her head, "something casual. You don't wear your armor to a Midgardian celebration, love, not unless it's a costume party. We don't usually wear armor to parties here."

The crown Prince of Asgard hummed in thought, "then I'm afraid I do not own anything suitable to wear to this party." Pan touched his arm, "we'll shower and go out to get you something to wear. I think I need something, too."

*P*P*P*P*P*

Pan took a sip from her prickly pear mojito, eyes scanning the various party goers over the rim of the glass.

The quarter saiyan wore a shimmery deep burgundy off-the-shoulders top with a billowing black hi-lo skirt, accented with silver jewelry and heels. Her ebony locks were up in a braided crown with loose strands framing her face.

Pan hopped off of her bar stool and shuffled out of the way of a clearly drunk old man, being led out of the party by another pair of elderly men, both of them veterans. The quarter saiyan looked back towards where they'd come from and saw her fiancé and Steve standing shoulder to shoulder, laughing, and headed in their direction.

"Did you give that poor old man some of Volstagg's mead from your flask?"

Thor looked up and smiled at his fiancée, offering his hand to her, "you look radiant, my Lady."

"Thank you. Don't avoid the question though." Pan took his offered hand and turned to smile sweetly at Steve, "did he?" Captain Rogers chuckled and shrugged at his comrade, "he did, gave me some, too," he held up his glass, "sorry, Thor."

"To be fair, he did _ask_ for some," the blonde demi-god defended, "I warned him and he insisted. My hands were tied."

" _Mmhmm_ …" The brunette quarter saiyan wrapped her free arm around Thor's waist, "how much longer until this shindig's over, there are too many strangers in here and it's bothering me. This is supposed to be our space."

"Eh, it's not so bad."

"Speak for yourself, Cap," Pan replied softly, "I'm a bit of an ambivert. It's a term for someone who has both intro and extroverted traits." She explained further at the confused look on Steve's face.

"That's something I'm gonna have to Google, isn't it?"

"Probably, old man."


	4. Chapter 4

**I'd like to make one thing abundantly clear: I'm certain Mljornir doesn't work like this... like at all. I originally planned to rewrite this scene and take that out, and maybe I will in the future, but it stands as is for now.**

* * *

The moment the last of the guests that were unofficially part of the team left, Pan kicked off her heels and began plucking bobby pins out of her hair, freeing it from the braid crown. Thor sweetly offered a helping hand, and actually turned out to be more efficient at getting the pins out of her hair.

"I need someone like that in my life," Maria looked longingly in Pan's direction as Thor gently combed the braid out with his fingers, "he's so sweet."

"When he wants to be," Pan laughed softly, "don't let the sweet act fool you, he's got his cheeky moments." She settled against her fiancé's side, settling her feet on the edge of the coffee table and wiggling her glittery grey painted toes, "I hate heels."

"Then why wear them?" Clint queried.

"Because I'm 5 feet tall with a fiancé that's 6 foot 3," she grumbled, "sometimes I like trying to close that gap a little."

"By strapping beautiful torture devices to your feet?"

"Beauty is pain." Pan raised her mojito in the air, and Tasha, Maria, and Helen mirrored her actions, all four of the women drinking to her statement. Steve, Tony, Clint, Thor, Bruce, and Rhodey exchanged looks and collectively shrugged.

"What's the deal with the hammer, Thor?"

 _Oh, this'll be good…_

*P*P*P*P*P*

Pan raised a single brow, otherwise keeping her poker face in check when Steve managed to get the hammer to wiggle just a bit in its place on the table. She felt Thor stiffen a bit next to her and muffled an amused snort in her glass. Her fiancé relaxed when it became clear that Steve couldn't lift it.

"What about you, Panna?" Clint gestured to the hammer, "Wanna have a go?"

Pan turned to look at Thor, a question in her eyes. The blond demi-god chuckled and waved a hand towards Mjolnir, giving her the go-ahead. The brunette pulled her feet off the table and stood, passing her glass to Thor before approaching the hammer.

"Alright, Mew-Mew," Pan murmured, "be good to Mama." She grasped the handle tightly… and lightly tossed the hammer into the air. It spun a few times and came back down to her hand. Everybody's jaw dropped.

"How the _hell_ …?"

"Why am I _not_ surprised?"

"Dude, _what_?"

"She is worthy because _I_ am worthy," Thor spoke smugly, "so long as she remains my betrothed, she has the ability to lift Mjolnir."

"I can't _wield_ it, per say," Pan filled in, "that power is his and his alone. I can call it to me so long as he's not trying to call it to him at the same time." She put the hammer back down and moved aside so Thor could lift the hammer. There was a noted difference in how the hammer reacted to him lightly tossing it as compared to Pan.

"So the only way we had a chance in hell of being able to lift the damn thing was if he asked us to marry him?"

Pan rolled her eyes at Tony, "Yeah, pretty much. I imagine there's some loophole where he has to actually _want_ to marry you, but… pretty much. It's very vague stuff."


	5. Chapter 5

A sharp whine at an obnoxiously high decibel suddenly echoed through the room, causing everyone to flinch and reach for their ears. Pan mumbled a curse and hunched her shoulders up.

"How could you be worthy?" a mechanized voice questioned, "You're all _killers_." Pan dropped her hands and looked up, watching as a rather wrecked member of Tony's Iron Legion shuffled into the room, dripping grease and showering small sparks on the floor.

"Uh, Tony?" the quarter saiyan began to raise her ki slightly, her body shifting into a subtly defensive position. The rest of the team mirrored her, standing and getting ready for a fight.

"I had to kill the other guy," the suit mumbled, "He was a good guy."

"You killed someone?" Steve asked frostily.

"Wouldn't have been my first call," the thing shrugged, "but, down in the real world, we're faced with ugly decisions."

"Who sent you?" Thor shifted a bit behind Pan, now she could see him in her peripheral vision. His grip on his hammer was so tight, the skin of his fingers and hand had gone stark white.

To everyone's surprise, the Legion suit played a recording of Tony's voice saying, " _I see a suit of armor around the world_." Bruce's face lit up with recognition, " _Ultron_."

"In the flesh." _Ultron_ responded, "or no, not yet. Not this… _chrysalis_. But I'm ready, I'm on a mission."

"What mission?" Pan and Tasha asked at the same time, sparing each other a quick glance. Thor adjusted his grip on Mjolnir and Maria quietly clicked the safety off on her pistol. Ultron's head twitched towards them as he uttered his response.

" _Peace in our time_."

The glass walls behind Ultron imploded in a razor sharp shower as more of the Iron Legion burst into the room, rushing at them faster than even Pan had been prepared for. She hit the floor with Maria and Rhodey, barely avoiding the glass shards flying at her in the process.

Steve knocked the coffee table into the air with his foot, using it as a shield to block one of the Legion from plowing right into him. Pan got up and raised a ki shield just in time to block a barrage of missiles. Another Legion bot came at her from the side and Pan sidestepped, grabbing it by the back of its neck and ripping the wires and circuits out. It hit the floor, powerless.

Pan channeled a bit of ki into her feet to keep the glass all over the floor from cutting into them and hurried across the room to provide Nat and Bruce with some cover. She released a handful of tiny blue ki blasts from her finger tips, aimed for the Legion bot firing on her two teammates, and smirked triumphantly when it exploded.

"Hmm," Ultron hummed behind her. Pan turned to look at the bot and pinned it to the wall with some ki bonds with barely a thought, almost immediately returning her attention to the scuffle at hand.

*P*P*P*P*P*

"I'm sorry, I know you mean well… you just didn't think it through. You want to protect the world but you don't want it to _change_ ," Ultron intoned from where he was pinned to the wall, " _how_ is humanity _saved_ if it's not allowed to _evolve_?"

The team exchanged furtive glances at Ultron's words, all of them clearly unsettled. Ultron's head twitched and, this time, it seemed to be focused on Pan. She eyed the bot uncomfortably, shifting defensively at its incredibly penetrative stare.

"And you, Miss Son," everyone's eyes moved to her, "your family has a history of ' _saving_ ' the planet, don't they? And yet, somehow, they kept drawing bigger and bigger threats here with each triumph. Is it really _saving_ humanity if their presence and strength only continues to put humanity in danger?"

Pan swallowed thickly and inwardly cursed herself when her body began to quake with anxiety. She didn't know what to say to that because, once she really thought about it, Ultron was _right_. Thor placed a hand on the small of her back, his touch quieting her racing thoughts, "you know nothing of her family, Ultron."

"It's all in here, Thunder Boy," Ultron remarked cheekily, gesturing towards his head with one of his stumps, "all of your backgrounds are, actually. There's only one path to peace," he said, the somberness in his tone somehow coming off as mocking, "the Avengers' extinction."

Thor had apparently heard enough at that point, because Mjolnir whistled past Pan's ear and completely annihilated Ultron's current form. Pan watched in silence as her ki bonds flickered and vanished, letting the remains fall to the floor with a dull clatter, mind screaming a hundred thousand different things all at once.

" _I had strings but now I'm free…_ " Ultron's eyes flickered with blue light before dimming entirely as the suit lost power. Pan's fists clenched at her sides and her gaze dropped to the floor as anxious thoughts washed over her.

 _He's right... we've always done more harm than good…_


	6. Chapter 6

**Most of this is word-for-word transcript from Age of Ultron and I apologize for that. Also, it's been a minute since the last update and I apologize for that also. This fic still doesn't have a title with is a bit frustrating. Enjoy the chapter.**

 **P.S. Another change I'm adding to the official canon for this 'verse is that Pan was an original member of the Initiative, thereby nullifying ' _Underestimate_ ' and ' _Finding a Codename_ 's candidacy for canonship. If I ever commit, I'll write the new canon later. I do have some stuff for it written, but nothing worth posting.**

* * *

Pan sat quietly on one of the tables in Tony's lab, dressed down in a dark grey hoodie, a pair of black tights, and some black converse. Her hair was drawn up in a hastily-made bun on top of her head.

Everything everyone was saying was simultaneously sticking and going through one ear and out of the other. One thing that the quarter saiyan knew was that this ' _Ultron_ ' situation was shaping up to be as big as what Loki had put them through three years prior.

"He said he killed someone." Clint's statement brought Pan's attention back to the conversation at hand, and Maria, who was trying to pick glass from her feet, responded, "There wasn't anyone else in the building."

"Yes there was." With a flick of his wrist, Tony transferred what he'd pulled up on his phone to the larger holographic interactive interface in the lab. An orange… _something_ with bits of blue floated before them, looking somewhat shattered.

"Is that… _JARVIS_?" Pan stood up and approached the display, "it looks like someone _shattered_ him."

Bruce approached the broken AI, disbelief on his face, "this is _insane_."

"JARVIS was the first line of defense, he would've shut Ultron down, it makes sense." Steve intoned quietly, arms crossed over his chest.

"No. Ultron could've assimilated JARVIS," Bruce's eyes were searching the broken pieces of the AI for answers, "this isn't strategy, this is… _rage_." Everyone was quiet after that, exchanging loaded looks.

The sound of footsteps approaching the lab swiftly caught everyone's attention, and Pan watched as Thor, decked out in full armor, swept into the room. He grabbed Tony by the neck and raised him up in the air.

" _Whoa, whoa, whoa_ …"

"It's going around."

Pan hopped off of the table and crossed her arms over her chest, silently debating on whether or not to intervene. Tony mumbled something that was muffled by the hand around his neck.

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." Thor rumbled threatening. Pan coughed pointedly, drawing her fiance's attention, "Thor, that's enough." She narrowed her eyes and gestured for him to release Tony.

" _Thor_ ," Steve called sharply, "The Legionnaire?" The demi-god released Tony with a disgusted look and reported, "The trail went cold about 100 miles out, but it's headed north. And it has the scepter, now we have to retrieve it _again_."

Pan took the hair tie off of her bun and let her hair back down so she could rake her hands through it in frustration.

"Genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron."

"I don't understand," all eyes went to Helen, who was examining Ultron's broken rudimentary body, "you built this program." Her eyes landed on Tony, "why is it trying to kill us?"

Tony chuckled softly, causing the rest of the team to shoot him scathing looks. Bruce shook his head at him, trying to get him to stop.

"You think this is _funny_?" Pan uttered, disbelief coloring her tone, "how the hell are you laughing at this?"

"No, I don't," Tony replied, a slight hitch in his voice, "it's probably not, right? This is very terrible. Is it so… Is it so… It is. It's so _terrible_."

"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand."

"No. I'm sorry. It _is_ funny. It's a _hoot_ that you don't get why we need this."

"Need _what_ , exactly?" Pan cocked her head to the side in disbelief, "a killer AI that wants us to go _extinct?_ Yeah, I guess if we were all fucking suicidal, I could see the logic in that."

"Oh, don't go acting high and mighty, sweets," Tony shot back, "we all heard Ultron when he was talking about your family and how they draw threats to the damn planet with their—"

"Things have been peaceful on our end for over a _decade_ now," Pan cut him off scathingly, eyes briefly flashing teal with her ire, "so don't you _dare_ talk shit about my family. But _please…_ humor us," she waved a hand sarcastically, signaling that the floor was his, "why is the killer AI a good thing?"

"Maybe we should just put a hold on this until morning, Tony," Bruce spoke up quietly, "when things aren't so raw…"

" _Really_? That's _it_?" Tony cast a betrayed look at his ' _science bro_ ', "You just roll over, show your belly every time somebody snarls?"

"Only when I've created a murder bot."

"We _didn't_ ," Tony insisted, "we weren't even _close_. Were we close to an interface?" Bruce pursed his lips and shook his head, clearly unconvinced, but he wasn't the one who responded.

"Well, you did something right," Steve intoned brusquely, "and you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Anybody remember when I carried a _nuke_ through a _wormhole_?"

"Not at all." Pan replied sarcastically. "Nope, it's never come up." Rhodey spoke in a similar tone.

"Saved New York?" Tasha cut her eyes to the side and didn't comment.

"Recall that?" Tony cast a wild-eyed look around the room, "a hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing 300 feet below it." He paused for a moment, "we're the _Avengers_. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but that's up there, that's… that's the endgame." He looked around the room at everyone else again, "how were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Together." Steve responded succinctly.

"We'll lose."

"Then we'll do that together, too." Tony licked his lips and nodded once before turning away. Cap sighed softly, "Thor's right. Ultron's calling us out, and I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

Pan's gaze remained on the floor, only rising when a pair of familiar Asgardian boots appeared in her line of sight. A warm coarse palm pressed against her cheek and she leaned into the affectionate touch, smiling weakly at her fiancé. Thor cast her a concerned gaze and wrapped his free hand around her waist, pulling her into his embrace.

"Would you like to go rest or spar?"

"Spar," Pan practically spit the words out, "I need to work this… _excess_ off before I lose it and blow something up." A few faint crackles of blue bio-electricity coursed over her body, and her brown eyes were slowly turning teal despite her tight grip on her ki, "I know just the place. Hold onto me."

Thor adjusted his grip and Pan pressed two fingers to her forehead, closing her eyes and seeking out the ki signature she needed. When she found it, the duo vanished from Tony's lab with a soft whizzing noise.

*P*P*P*P*P*

Dende didn't look up when Pan and Thor appeared in front of him, he just smiled knowingly and gestured towards the chamber, "I had Mister Popo prepare the Time Chamber for you. How long do you need it, Pan?"

"I just need a whole day, not a year. We have to be back in New York by morning, we've got a situation on our hands."

"I've seen," the Kami responded sagely, "would you like me to warn your family?"

"Yes, and the Briefs. Bulma might be in danger. Tell them I'm sorry I didn't have time to explain it in person, but the quicker we get on this, the quicker it gets handled."

"Very well," Dende acquiesced, "I'll set the chamber for a day there and four minutes here."

"Thank you, Dende."

*P*P*P*P*P*

The group was still discussing Ultron in the lab when, about six minutes after their departure, Pan and Thor reappeared in the lab, looking sweaty and fresh from a rough sparring session. The former turned and met the surprised gazes, "what?"

"You guys were only gone for six minutes, how the hell are you this gross?" Clint asked, making a show of pinching his nose.

"My family has this place where you can get a year's worth of training in only a day," Pan explained softly, rolling her eyes at the archer's antics, "we only used it for four minutes. The thing is, each person gets a maximum of two days or two years. If you go any longer than that, you'll be stuck in that dimension permanently."

"Of course you'll have to be able to withstand the elements in the room," Thor smiled fondly in memory, "it was blistering hot for about an hour and then below freezing within the next."

"It's intense and not for the fainthearted." Pan summarized, "I'm going to shower and eat several times my weight in something incredibly unhealthy. See you lot in the morning."

* * *

 **This is as far as I've gotten with the movie, so I have to get back to watching it and picking out which scenes I want to do. The next is, obviously, the scene where almost everyone ends up compromised and Hulk goes on a rampage. I haven't the slightest clue when it'll be done, I've got a lot on my plate right now. I'm thinking of adding an interlude where Pan speaks with her family, we'll have to see.**

 **~*~ _CloudSpires1295_ ~*~**


	7. Chapter 7

**A little something-something I've got ready for you. Mind you I didn't want to post it because, in the movie, everyone else sees something when Wanda does her thing, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what Pan would see. So today, nearly 2 years after I started this piece, I figured out... something. I'm not sure how I feel about it but it'll be in the update following this one.**

* * *

Pan strolled into the kitchen the next morning, dressed in a loose grey t-shirt, a pair of sturdy blue pants and black boots. She held a black hair tie in her mouth as she worked to get her hair in a ponytail. Tony turned to look at her and offered the touchscreen pad to her.

The quarter saiyan let her hair fall and took the pad from Tony without meeting his gaze, still feeling somewhat slighted from his harsh words the night before. A picture of Strucker, dead by headshot in his prison cell and the word ' _PEACE_ ' written in blood on the wall, greeted her.

" _Ugh_ ," she muttered, grimacing, "just what I needed first thing in the morning. Anything from the rogue Legionnaire?"

"They've been breaking and entering all over the globe," Steve responded tersely, "stealing from robotics labs, weapons facilities, and jet propulsion labs. The Maximoffs have been helping them."

"Maximoffs? The enhanced kids from Sokovia?"

"The very same."

"Of course," Pan mused on the rest of the information Steve provided, "it sounds like he's building his own Legion, or adding onto what he already has. Robotics, weapons, jets? That's the barebones of what he'd need."

"But why the smoke screen with Strucker? He made his speech, what was the point?" Tasha held her hand out for the pad and Pan passed it over immediately.

"Strucker knew something," Steve's voice was resolute, "and Ultron wanted us to miss it."

"I bet he… yeah," The red haired assassin typed a few things into the computer, "everything we had on Strucker's been erased."

"Not everything."

*A*A*A*A*A*

That's how the Avengers found themselves digging through a multitude of boxes containing the hardcopies of files on Baron von Strucker. Pan thumbed quickly through a file and, finding nothing of relevance to the situation at hand, set it aside and grabbed the next one in the box. She felt her phone vibrating in her pocket and put the file back down before leaving the immediate vicinity to take the call.

Pan looked at the screen and, upon seeing her mother's smiling face flashing at her, accepted the call and raised the phone to her ear, "it's a bit late over there isn't it, Mama?"

" _It's never too late to call my child because there's a potentially world-ending threat on the horizon that her family's not allowed to help her deal with._ " Videl's voice was sharp, " _don't try and change the subject, Pan. How bad is it?_ "

"It's a long story and we're in the middle of looking for leads to track down the guy," Pan responded, "I don't have time to explain it in detail."

" _Just explain it the best you can right now,_ " her mother urged, " _I don't mind._ "

"Long story short," the quarter saiyan pursed her lips apprehensively, "Tony was trying to do… _something_ in his lab with Bruce's help," she murmured, "they were trying to create something that could protect the earth from future threats and render the Avengers obsolete. It went sour and now we've got a rogue artificial intelligence on the loose that can use the internet to travel pretty much anywhere that has internet access. He's hijacked Tony's Legionnaire OS, and… and it's a really big mess that we need to clean up ASAP. Everyone's prickly and on edge about it. Tony's heart was in the right place, but… I wish he hadn't tried to keep it a secret. That just makes it worse."

" _Do you think the others would've been okay with him creating something that would take the place of the Avengers if he had told you all about it beforehand?_ "

"I honestly don't know, Mama," Pan raked a hand through her wavy locks, "I really can't answer that for certain." She turned her head at the sound of soft footfalls and, seeing her fiancé approaching, raised a single brow in question.

"We've a lead, beloved," Thor rumbled, stopping just short of Pan's reach, "Ultron's headed to Africa." She reached out and took his left hand in hers, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand. The demi-god smiled and gingerly pulled her closer, wrapping his right arm around her waist.

" _Is that Thor?_ "

"Yes, Mama," Pan murmured, taking the phone away from her ear and putting her on speaker, "you're on speaker now, say hi."

" _Hi, Thor!_ "

"Greetings, Mrs. Son." Thor responded jovially, "how do you fare?"

" _I'm fine, how are you?_ "

"Very well, thank you for inquiring."

"Mama," Pan poked in, "sorry to break this up but we've got a lead and we gotta run. I'll check in later. I love you."

" _Love you too. Stay safe, both of you._ "

"We'll do our best. Give Papa our love. Bye."

" _I will. Bye_."

Pan ended the call and leaned up on her tip toes to kiss Thor gingerly on the lips, "let's get suited up so we can try to beat him to the punch." She pulled away, keeping his hand in hers, dragging him along to the room they shared in the tower.

P*P*P*P*P

Pan leaned against the side of the quinjet, eyes closed as she monitored her teammate's ki signatures while they confronted Ultron and his cronies. Bruce was puttering around inside the jet, standing aside until they called for a ' _Code Green_ '.

So far, things seemed to be going in their favor. One of Ultron's clone things burst out of the ship with Tony in hot pursuit. Pan opened her eyes to watch the dogfight, keeping surveillance on the others' ki's in the back her head. In rapid succession she felt Thor, Steve, and Nat's energy signatures… _waver_ , for lack of better word. They didn't dip or rise in any way, they just felt slightly off.

Alarm bells began to ring softly in the back of Pan's head. _Something's not right here, I knew I should've went in with them_.

The quarter saiyan pushed off of the quinjet, slapping the side to get Bruce's attention, "hang tight, Bruce, I'm going to check something out. Be back in a sec."

"W-wait, what are you checking out? Is something wrong?" The anxious doctor moved to the boarding ramp, "you think it might call for a Code Green?"

"I'm sure it's nothing," _my gut says otherwise_ , "but I just wanna make certain. No Code Green, just stay here, Doc."

"Okay…" Bruce still looked uncertain, but nodded his agreement, "I'll stay put. Keep me updated on the coms."

"Will do." Pan returned the favor and approached the freighter at a light run, deciding against taking to the skies. She got within 50 feet of the nearest entrance, just out of sight of the quinjet, when she felt a familiar ki approaching from her left flank.

"Could've sworn we had this discussion, dude," Pan glanced over her shoulder, spotting the male Maximoff hovering near some rusted piece of wreckage, "you're not fast enough to get the drop on me."

A wry smirk formed on his lips, "I don't have to be faster than you, Miss Avenger," the title came out in a sneer, "just more clever."

Before Pan could think of a response, bright red wisps of energy formed around her, pinning her arms to her sides and holding her feet in place. She tried to power up, but an attempt to do so was met with a near-painful buzz at the base of her skull.

"I'd say sorry," a distinctly feminine voice with the same Sokovian accent as the Maximoff boy whispered, just inches from her ear, "but I'm really not." Pan caught just a glimpse of the female enhanced, blue eyes glowing with the same red energy holding her captive, before two small hands with thin fingers laced with that sinister red energy rose up to hover just inches from her temples. Those thin, spidery digits twitched ever so slightly…

Pan's vision flashed that same scarlet for only a moment, and then she felt as though her entire being was being flipped upside down and turned inside out. The energy holding her still vanished and, like a puppet with its strings cut, the quarter saiyan slumped to the ground in a heap. Her vision began to fade, blacking out rapidly at the edges as she succumbed to whatever magic the girl had worked on her mind. Ever so faintly, she heard the witch speaking to her brother, only just making sense of the words she spoke.

" _No… I want the big one._ "

Darkness fell over her in a thick blanket after that, severing her senses and setting her adrift in a sea of black nothingness. Pan had only a moment of that strange peace before the true nightmare began…


	8. Chapter 8

_Everything was on fire._

 _Pan stood in the middle of a hellscape that clearly used to be a teeming metropolis. Cars were burning and exploding left right, windows bursting and sending hot shards of glass flying, buildings were burning, skyscrapers were crumbling and riddled with holes, and people were lying dead and dying in the streets and on the sidewalks. It was absolute chaos._

 _The quarter saiyan flinched away from the screams of terror and pain, hands warm with ki as she moved to form shields to try and suppress the flames. A pair of burned hands grabbed her wrists before she could try, and Pan couldn't help the choked gasp of horror at the sight of the owner of said hands. Their face was badly burnt and horribly disfigured, she couldn't tell who they were or if she knew them, her senses were too frazzled to try and identify their ki._

 _The grip on her wrists tightened, burnt and charred skin pulling taut to the point that it split, revealing the bloody meat and bone beneath. She swallowed back bile and averted her eyes._

 _"Y-you," the partially melted lips opened to rasp, "you did this." One eye was melted shut, the other pierced her soul and filled her with guilt._

 _"I- I don't understand."_

 _One hand released her wrist to grab her chin and force her to look up towards the skies, colored a deep reddish-orange tinged black from all the fire and smoke, "Look…"_

 _Pan blinked to focus her vision and saw a fight raging overhead. Shock waves erupted as blows connected faster than the speed of sound, ki blasts flew in every direction, and the blasts that didn't connect only added to the carnage and destruction. She felt her heart drop when she recognized herself as one of the assailants, the other a faceless, nameless being hell-bent on destroying the planet._

 _"You and your kind," the hand on her chin forced her gaze back to the melted visage of one of many victims before them, "your… 'family'," they spat, voice full of vitriol, "you mean well… but us, we always suffer when you try and 'save' us. They just keep coming, bigger and stronger than the last… all you're doing is delaying the inevitable. Maybe it'd be better if you'd just let us burn…"_

 _As if triggered by their words, fire erupted at their feet and began to climb up their legs, consuming what little of them was left. Pan flinched back as they suddenly surged forward, that one eye alight with hatred, "and maybe you should burn with us!"_

 _The quarter saiyan began fighting to escape the grip, but it was too strong. She screamed as they drew her into arms alight with flame, a mockery of a warm embrace, and the fire began eating away at her, burning through her clothes, catching her hair, searing away and melting through her skin._

 _Her screams were lost, meshing seamlessly into the cacophony of suffering and agony, while her doppelganger, still fighting a fruitless battle overhead, turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the carnage below._

*S*S*S*S*S*

Pan came to with a sharp jerk that became a full body tremor as she became more awake and aware of her surroundings. She was strapped into one of the seats towards the back of the quinjet. She looked down at her trembling form, relieved that she was no longer burning alive and that she was whole again.

Bruce was sitting on the floor, wrapped in a thin blanket and looking as worn as he did after a Hulk out.

Had there been a Code Green…?

Natasha was sitting across from her, looking just as out of it as Pan currently felt at the time. Thor was standing, more so leaning against the wall, closer to the back entrance to the jet, his back to the rest of the group, while Steve was seated on the floor behind the cockpit where Clint and Tony were.

"W-where are w-we?"

Tony was the only who reacted as if he'd heard her speak, rising from the co-pilot's chair and walking to crouch in front of her, "Birdbrain's flying us to a ' _safe house_ ' or so he says." The joking note in his voice sounded flat to her ears, "this is a terrible question to ask, but how are you feeling?"

Pan laughed mirthlessly, "like my mind and soul was ripped apart and thrown back together the wrong way. What the hell did she…?"

"We don't know what the witch did to you guys but, as shitty is this sounds, I'm glad she didn't do to you what she did to Bruce," Tony lowered his voice so the scientist wouldn't hear him, "I don't have any contingency plans in place for you if you ever… have a Code SS gone wrong."

"I… what?"

"I don't know what she put in his head, but he was… even if Nat had been able, I'm not sure a Lullaby would've worked for him, not in the state he was in."

"I should've stayed with him," Pan mumbled, "Kami, this is my fault. I left him alone because something felt off with Thor, Cap, and Nat's ki's. I wanted to make sure they were alright and the Maximoffs got one over on me. I didn't even see it coming. Kami, I'm so stupid, that was so reckless of me. I didn't even call it in on the comms."

"Hey," Tony cut in gently, "no one's fucked up as badly as I have recently. You're not the first one to forget to call something in on comms and you won't be the last."

"Tony…"

"Nope, don't wanna hear it," the billionaire hushed her gently, "just… try to get a little more rest, Legolas says we'll make landfall in an hour and a half."

There was more Pan wanted to say but, as if triggered by the mention of rest, a wave of crippling exhaustion washed over her, dragging her down towards sleep. As much as she didn't want to for fear of the nightmares she'd have, she couldn't fight it and lapsed off into slumber in moments.


End file.
